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Out of sheer curiosity, we here at Compete used our demographic data to craft a mini-infographic showing the income breakdown across 6 of the top social sites. The US Browser Population is lined beneath each data-set for further comparison and context.

Of these properties, LinkedIn shows the most notable emphasis towards a specific demographic, individuals earning 60k and above. Pinterest shows a slightly higher representation among higher incomedemographics and Tumblr shows the same slight skew towards less affluent demographics.

Facebook and Google+ show even representation between all demographics, probably a result of how pervasive they are across the social-scape.

Nielsen’s long been the gold standard for TV ratings, and as our watching habits change, the firm’s reforming its ways to keep track of what we’re watching. Earlier this year it combined its online and broadcast metrics to give advertisers a more comprehensive look at a show’s reach, and now its going to track how much buzz shows are getting on Twitter. Called the Nielsen Twitter TV Rating, it aims to provide a look at real-time social activity during programming, so networks can provide tailored interactive experiences and better engage with their viewers. What kind of interactive experiences, you ask? We aren’t sure just yet, but you can get the full PR spiel touting the nebulous benefits of the forthcoming Twitter tracking after the break.

If this is what it looks like, it’s terrifying: an electronic voting machine that won’t let you vote for who you want to vote for.

The video, uploaded today which surfaced on Reddit, is allegedly from a voting station in Pennsylvania—a major state in the election. The man who recorded the faulty machine, which is either deliberately not allowing a touch vote for Obama, malfunctioning, or maybe just has a bad touchscreen, said the following:

My wife and I went to the voting booths this morning before work. There were 4 older ladies running the show and 3 voting booths that are similar to a science fair project in how they fold up. They had an oval VOTE logo on top center and a cartridge slot on the left that the volunteers used to start your ballot.

I initially selected Obama but Romney was highlighted. I assumed it was being picky so I deselected Romney and tried Obama again, this time more carefully, and still got Romney. Being a software developer, I immediately went into troubleshoot mode. I first thought the calibration was off and tried selecting Jill Stein to actually highlight Obama. Nope. Jill Stein was selected just fine. Next I deselected her and started at the top of Romney’s name and started tapping very closely together to find the ‘active areas’. From the top of Romney’s button down to the bottom of the black checkbox beside Obama’s name was all active for Romney. From the bottom of that same checkbox to the bottom of the Obama button (basically a small white sliver) is what let me choose Obama. Stein’s button was fine. All other buttons worked fine.

I asked the voters on either side of me if they had any problems and they reported they did not. I then called over a volunteer to have a look at it. She him hawed for a bit then calmly said “It’s nothing to worry about, everything will be OK.” and went back to what she was doing. I then recorded this video.

Again, there’s no proof that this is deliberate vote manipulation—or even that it’s real. Maybe the video is edited. But maybe it’s not. And if there’s a day we should err on the side of scrutiny, it’s the day when we pick the President of the United States with fallible machines. The original poster says he’s “not a video guy, but if it’s possible to prove whether a video has been altered or not, I will GLADLY provide the raw footage to anyone who is willing to do so. The jumping frames are a result of the shitty camera app on my Android phone, nothing more.”

Google Wallet hasn’t had much uptake in the real world. When most of its use has revolved around one carrier, few payment points and even fewer phones, most of us have had to sit on the sidelines. If an Android Police source really did come across a leaked future build of Google Wallet as he claims, though, we may know how Google surmounts that problem: going old school with a real-world card. Screenshots in the app supposedly show a mail-in option for plastic that could completely replace credit and debit cards without turning to NFC. Any charges after a typical swipe of the magnetic strip would simply go to whatever payment source is set as Wallet’s default, letting minimalists slim down their actual wallets while sharing in the same discounts as their phone-wielding counterparts. Digital-only purists would still get something out of the deal, as the update could also bring person-to-person money transfers and support for mass transit cards. How soon the as yet unconfirmed app would appear is still a mystery, but it dovetails with Google teasing a Wallet revamp that’s rumored to take mobile use beyond its Android-only roots; we just didn’t anticipate that the company might bypass our phones altogether.

Amazon is using its heavily trafficked front page to trash the iPad mini.

As you can see below, Amazon does a head to head comparison with the Kindle Fire HD and the iPad mini. The Kindle Fire HD comes out on top.

A few things about this ad. Amazon says it can play HD movies. In his review of the Kindle Fire HD, David Pogue said, “Incidentally, despite the name ‘HD,’ the screen can’t actually show you movies in hi-def. It may have the requisite number of pixels, but most of them are dedicated to black letterbox bars; the screen is the wrong shape for movies. And you can’t enlarge the playback to fill the screen, as you can on an iPad.”

And Walt Mossberg in his review said, “The Fire HD isn’t as polished, fluid or versatile as the iPad.”

The reason for that is iOS, Apple’s mobile software which is vastly superior to Amazon’s tablet software.

The real question for people looking at buying a tablet is whether or not it’s worth paying an extra $130 for an iPad mini which has better software and a bigger library of apps. Also, we should get official reviews of the iPad mini this week, which will give us better independent comparisons.

A massive public policy study has revealed that on average file-sharers buy 30 percent more music than their non-sharing counterparts. That suggests that the record labels’ self-declared enemies are in fact their best customers.

The study, known as the Copy Culture Survey, was carried out by the non-partisan American Assembly, and the results were teased yesterday. It’s based on thousands of in-depth telephone interviews across the US, and it’s probably one of the most thorough reviews of media sharing habits to be undertaken.

The results, which seem to fly in the face of assumed record label wisdom, show that file-sharers buy 30 percent more music than their non-sharing counterparts. Interestingly, it also points out that offline copying is far more prevalent than online music piracy.

However, it’s also worth pointing out that self-confessed P2P file sharers reported having larger music collections. So, it might not be all too surprising that music lovers, with bigger music collections, also buy more music: a taste for media consumption encourages both file sharing and purchasing.

That, along with the news that offline piracy is a bigger concern, is something the record labels need to wrestle with. [American Assembly via Torrent Freak]

People love to advertise their experiences. Social media is more or less about the marketing of the self, and so the move of Grey Goose to host its interactive Hotel Noir campaign on social upstarts Pinterest and Instagram makes complete sense.

Luxury is embedded in this brand’s story, and they know it. Just watch the film paired with the campaign; it’s that coy and elusive drama that intrigues you and convinces you that you’re missing something crucial. It’s romantic. It’s private, captivating, and calculating. This aura is designed, and it’s the same aura many people seek to create about themselves through social media. But is it working for Grey Goose?

It very well may be. The 3rd and 4th highest volumes of incoming traffic to GreyGoose.com are off Facebook and Pinterest respectively. Looking at the unique visitors to the site, we can see a distinct upward trend coupled with a rise in the average stay on the site. More people are spending more time on GreyGoose.com over the past three months. This speaks to engagement, content, and interaction.

The reason this campaign could be working is because Grey Goose knows who they are appealing to. Looking at their online demographics (below), it’s clear their audience is predominantly young, between the ages of 18-34. This generation loves social media, but more importantly knows how to use it and collaborate across platforms. That’s why a campaign that uses Pinterest in tandem with Facebook in tandem with Instagram in tandem with a branded site can work.

Essentially Grey Goose has found a way to captivate its audience and inspire them to advertise for the brand by generating a story that is alluring to online consumers. The campaign asks users to submit photos within the motif (an elegant black and white motif, accents blushed to crimson) through Instagram that can then be displayed on other platforms (like Pinterest and Facebook).

People are promoting themselves in the same instance that they’re promoting Grey Goose. All Grey Goose had to do was create that crucial air of mysterious luxury, and the need to partake in the exclusivity would propel the rest of the campaign.

This is already the draw to Instagram, where users select only the most delightful aspect of their lives to be photographed, filtered, gussied up and shared. Each photo is part of a meticulously constructed online identity, handpicked and refined so that it more-or-less represents how a person prefers to be represented rather than the actual person themselves.

And that’s fine! It’s already how people behave in most in-person social situations, so why shouldn’t the phenomenon of self-construction exist online? And since it is online, why shouldn’t a brand already exquisite in its classy aura take ahold of it? Good show, Grey Goose, good show.

We’re about halfway through the Mercedez-Benz Fashion Week here in New York, which often doesn’t have all that much of interest for us. But at the Diane Von Furstenberg show over the weekend, a special appearance by Google’s most sci-fi creation made us take notice. Select models wore Google’s Glasses, that crazy augmented-reality eyewear, as did Von Furstenberg herself and Google’s Sergey Brin, who sat in the front row. The models were filming a short documentary, to be called “DVF Through Glass,” which will be available to watch on Thursday.

Digital Consigliere

Dr. Augustine Fou is Digital Consigliere to marketing executives, advising them on digital strategy and Unified Marketing(tm). Dr Fou has over 17 years of in-the-trenches, hands-on experience, which enables him to provide objective, in-depth assessments of their current marketing programs and recommendations for improving business impact and ROI using digital insights.